


(not) enough

by zhangjunftw



Series: mermaid au [1]
Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: M/M, it's a part of my mermaid au but i couldn't bear to have it become that sad, kinda sad and angsty, so here we are with a separate oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 11:31:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhangjunftw/pseuds/zhangjunftw
Summary: the things that made Linkai and Ruibin fall in love with the other - but it's always the things you love that end up keeping you apart.





	(not) enough

They're childhood friends - but it is a small town, so that's not surprising. Everyone in town knows each other, and there is not an auntie in town who has not heard about Zheng Ruibin's parents: his father was a fisherman, a young man lost to the sea just like so many others before him, not very memorable - but his mother, now there's a mystery. A beautiful young woman with no voice whom no one really knows where she came from, she just appeared one day and never left. But elders talk, especially when there is hardly anything else that they can do unaided at that age, they say: "Look at her face, look at her skin - you can smell the ocean on her, and you still wonder where she comes from?" - but the words of senile men are rarely taken seriously, and their adult children will hush them: "don't be ridiculous, leave the fairy tales and myths in the realm of bedtime stories - no, mermaids can't possibly exist. Don't listen to your grandfather."

So this is how their childhood goes: grandparents whisper tales of demons in the water to slumbering children, parents will be left to console their children after nightmares of beautiful women with tails of shimmering scales that gleam as much as their sharp teeth - "Don't play with him, don't talk to him, don't even look at him," Linkai's grandfather would hiss in between coughing fits that left red spots on his handkerchiefs and ever-growing eyebags under his mother's eyes. But then Linkai's grandfather dies, and Linkai is five years old, and he decides that his grandfather was wrong, because Ruibin gave him a pretty shell and built a sandcastle with him. There's a gap where his front teeth should be, but Ruibin's teeth are otherwise normal and not at all sharp.

Linkai's mother is too busy dealing with work and grandfather's death to worry about her son building sandcastles and catching fish on the beach with the 'demon child'. Myths and bedtime stories are the last thing on her mind when she has a young child to feed and gambling debts that still need to be paid, even after the man who made them is gone. By the time she realises what has happened, Linkai and Ruibin are inseparable - but she has never been a believer, so she merely nods and life goes on.

(she leaves when Linkai is fifteen, with another woman, for the city and the new life that it promises her. Linkai moves in with Ruibin and his mother, who he has seen more of in the past five years than his own mother. She welcomes him into her home with open arms and a smile of perfectly normal teeth. She still smells of the ocean, but she also smells like Ruibin.)

* * *

People look at them, and they see Ruibin's face, they see his mother and they remember the bedtime stories of dangers lurking within the ocean waters, of powerful magic and they think that Linkai is the one who has fallen - but it is Ruibin who falls in love first. 

Perhaps it was because Linkai was the first to treat Ruibin like another person, and he will never forget the way that Linkai looked at him, without any fear whatsoever - but there are plenty of other reasons why Ruibin falls in love with Linkai.

Ruibin loves Linkai for his kindness, his gentle side that he only shows to those close to him. He loves him for how he takes care of everyone around him without even realising it sometimes. He loves him for remembering tiny details that everyone else misses, like how if given the choice, Ruibin will always choose salty food over sweets, or how he hates cucumbers with every fiber of his being, or how Linkai always reaches over to lace their fingers together when there's thunder, because he knows that Ruibin just gets a little bit nervous when it comes to loud noises.

Ruibin loves Linkai's playful and mischievous side, and the way that Linkai can always mae him laugh no matter how tired he is - Linkai always knows what to say or what to do to make him feel better. Or maybe it's just Linkai himself, because all he needs is the feeling of Linkai's hand in his to feel like he can take on anything that the world can throw at him.

He loves how Linkai has never been able to keep his plants alive, no matter what he does - yet he still refuses to give up and always ends up with another new pot on his windowsill.

Ruibin falls in love with Linkai's passion - everything that he does, he throws himself into it wholly. He sees it when Linkai dances, sweat dripping down his face, the last one to leave the studio - he hears it in his music, in the lyrics that Linkai pens himself. There is a magic in the way he writes: there is magic in his words - the way he conveys his emotions, his messages out into the world - there is a magic in the way that it evokes emotions in him every time Ruibin hears it.

He falls in love with how Linkai welcomes all the attention without even the slightest flinch, how he walks on stages like he owns them, with the way the spotlights shine down on him and Ruibin loses his breath every time, because Linkai was born for the stage, and he is at his most powerful when he is there where he belongs.

He loves Linkai for his fearlessness and his ambition - the way he always reaches and reaches and reaches because he is young and he wants and the sky and the stars and the ocean will never be enough for him. And maybe Ruibin resents him for wanting so much, because his ambition means that he will never be happy with just their small beach town. Linkai - no, Xiao Gui - was born for much bigger stages than what their home could ever offer him. But Linkai is Ruibin's moon, his other half, one has never been without the other, and "I need you."

"Come with me," Linkai pleads, and his voice trembles - Linkai is fearless, but right now, he is afraid, terrified, because he knows what Ruibin's answer will be, but he hopes, and he hopes beyond belief - and Ruibin wants to cry because no matter how much he wishes that he could give Linkai the answer that he needs to hear: "I just can't, Kaikai."

* * *

Linkai falls in love with Ruibin's voice, with the way he can make even the most simple of nursery rhymes sound beautiful, like something a choir of angels should be singing. He could listen to Ruibin's voice for the rest of his life, and only Ruibin's voice, and he would still never get tired of it. It doesn't matter whether he's singing or just talking - Linkai just wants to keep hearing Ruibin's voice forever. The first time he heard Ruibin sing, Linkai had cried, even though he hadn't understood a single word of what he had sang, because Ruibin's voice was just - he had never quite believed his grandfather's tales of magic, but when he listened to Ruibin sing, if there was any magic in the world at all, Linkai was certain that Ruibin's voice would be it. 

He falls in love with the way Ruibin's fingers dance across the black and white keys of the old piano in the school, coaxing beautiful melodies from the worn instrument. Linkai falls in love with the way Ruibin looks when the light of the setting sun shines in through the windows behind him in the piano room, and he understands why Ruibin has gathered throes of admirers, smitten young students who creep along the hallways to get a glimpse of him going through his piano practices. Because when he looks like that, the only word that comes to Linkai's mind is ethereal, and he thinks that Ruibin really must be something else, because how could someone be so beautiful just sitting there?

Linkai loves Ruibin for always being able to save his plants from the brink of death - he always laughs when Linkai shows him his latest victim, yet never complains when he nurses the plant back to health - maybe it is magic, because Linkai swore that that plant had kicked the bucket already, yet not even a week after being in Ruibin's care later, it is actually blooming flowers - but Ruibin has always been magical, hasn't he?

He loves Ruibin for his love for his mother. The woman who gave up everything to have him, who gives her all to care for him, and makes sure that he knows that he is loved every day of his life with smiles, hugs and through complicated hand gestures. Ruibin loves her back just as much as she loves him, and maybe it is a horrible thing to be resentful for, but Linkai resents him for loving her so much because it means that if he leaves town, he would have to leave Ruibin behind as well, because he would never leave his mother: "I'm all that she has left, Linkai".

But Ruibin is Linkai's sun, his other half, can't he see that he can't be without him? "So stay then," Ruibin pleads, his voice barely a whisper - and this must be what the sound of a heart breaking is. Linkai wishes that he could just lace their fingers together and that he could be content with just sitting on the beach, watching the ocean for the rest of his days - but he closes his eyes and turns away, he can't look into Ruibin's eyes, because he knows that if he does, he will start doubting - that's just how powerful Ruibin is - "I can't, Bin."

(he lets go)

**Author's Note:**

> i cried imagining this  
> come talk to me on twt: https://twitter.com/zhangjunftw
> 
> songs i was listening to while writing this:  
> fortress - bear's den  
> young blood - 5sos


End file.
